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29 May 2010

During the Second World War the Australians fought alongside the British in a desperate jungle war against the relentless Japanese war machine in places such as Malaysia and Burma. They not only fought against samurai swords and machineguns, but lack of resources, dysentery and malaria, to name but a few. Of course the Japanese had the same problems, except they had the samurai swords. The Allies pushed the Japanese back in the end, but only after a horrendous mash of blood, bullets and death.
On first opening the Walkers multi-packs I thought of this titanic struggle. I also mused over the other food the Anzacs are famous for, which are Anzac biscuits. These are one of my favourite biscuits and never last long when I find them. Unfortunately I didn’t have any with me to eat after the BBQ Kangaroo flavoured crisps. I noticed a good smoky whiff on opening the packet and a flavour not dissimilar to BBQ chicken. I honestly have no idea what Kangaroo tastes like, and had heard it was illegal to hunt them Down Under. If this is anything to go by, I’d like the taste of BBQ Kangaroo, but aren’t they sweet fluffy bouncy animals that beat up Tom or Sylvester in cartoons? If you find yourself in Australia some time and you’re visiting your Barbie cooking mate’s house, when he passes you a slab of animal protein, give it a try, but just don’t ask what the meat is.
I’ve mentioned in blogs before that there isn’t enough Oriental flavours of crisps out there. Walkers tried Hoi Sin Duck flavoured crisps and recently Real came out with their own brand of Oriental spiced crisps. You can imagine I was really looking forward to these. The heavily onion flavoured Hoi Sin crisps had previously been corrected by Real, but would this Japanese flavour add to the pot of choice? On tasting these crisps I first noticed that the Teriyaki sauce flavour was not as appetizing as Teriyaki flavoured dishes I’d previously eaten in Japanese restaurants, such as Mount Fuji and Wagamamas. There was a strange flavour behind the sauce that just didn’t feel right. It took a moment to realise that this was the chicken fighting against the Teriyaki flavour, rather than working with it, like it should do in a meal. Don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t a wholeheartedly unpleasant munch, but perhaps Teriyaki should stay on a plate rather than in crisp format. It was hardly a titanic struggle to choose between these two crisp flavours. Did Walkers forget to chop up the chicken with a samurai sword?

1 comment:

I have only tried Jerky once - it wasn't kangaroo though! I was eating it with Spectre on a train - and we ended it up sharing it with a random person on the train who wanted to know what it tasted like!